A Fairy Tale Retelling: Sherlock Holmes and the Great Fall
by Coquillage Atlas
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a man, a man with a name and a heart like closed barred doors, a man called Sherlock Holmes... Rated K for mentions of violence and weapons, along with inferred suicide. A one-shot.


**_A Fairy Tale Retelling: Sherlock Holmes and the Great Fall_**

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_A/N: I've gone back through this story and edited out the mistakes; hopefully it reads better now. I welcome any reviews!  
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_Words: 1,909  
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_Type: One-Shot_

_Main Characters: Sherlock, John, Moriarty_

_Additional Info: For those who notice, I have left out a few characters and various cases. They are inferred; as this is supposed to be a fairy tale, many details are generally hidden from the readers' eyes. I have made a few mentions of lesser characters as necessary to the story._

* * *

Once upon a time there was a man, a man with a name and a heart like barred doors, a man called Sherlock Holmes. And there was also a city, a great city, but it was dark in the night there, despite its frenetic lights, and the stars were few.

And in that city there were many who fought: blood-drenched men with swords and guns and knives, blood-soaked women with swords and guns and knives. And there were many who hid, shaking in their cold fear. Hiding from the misery of the darkness, hiding from death.

And there were a few who healed, but they were very few. Among these was a soldier, newly returned from war, cut deep with terrible injuries and treacherous memories, and he was alone in the dark city. At night, he listened to the sound of remembered screams and the curses of battle in his head, and sleep was scarce.

But above the streets of that city, there was Sherlock Holmes. The consulting detective, the only of his kind; he glittered with innate intelligence, hard-won experience, brilliant cunning, and he brought murderers to their knees. He turned the weapons of criminals upon themselves, and he handed them over to their hard-faced jailers. With him stood Lestrade, a flinty Detective Inspector, a silver sly fox of a man, handsome and sharp-tongued, quick to learn and act. And with Sherlock also stood Mrs. Hudson, but she was not a policewoman – nor a housekeeper. She wielded tea cups and little plates of pastries, along with a quiet sort of motherhood, for she guarded Sherlock's door with her own fierce brand of protection.

But Sherlock looked to his companions (and sometimes to those others who stood nearby, those who mocked and belittled him) and saw that they were not enough, not enough for him, he who needed a partner. And he had no one to ask; none who understood him. He was like a bright star in the heavens. All others, he thought, were murky puddles melting below on the earth.

Wistfully, Sherlock sent longing music into the sky, filling the night with the sweet voice of his violin, and those who listened to mortals and their wishes heard him.

And they sent him the broken soldier-doctor, John Watson.

* * *

John Watson was drawn to Sherlock in the same way the moon turned to the sun; he glowed brighter against the detective's shining light, and Sherlock found he could not look away from this gleaming mirror. Now both stood together above the city, ensconced in the warm walls of Baker Street, and the crimes seemed to pile up like logs for a fire. Together, the two men drew their weapons: swift minds, strong hands, quick running feet; a gun, two crooked hands. They fought their fights back-to-back, drawing from each other's strengths.

The cabbie with the pills: he was the first villain from whom John saved Sherlock.

The detective had stood there alone in that dingy white room, staring down at two identical pills, before a mad cabbie whispering lies, and he wondered if he could possibly win. He knew his strengths; he knew his electric-quick mind. He thought he could – and he reached out – and the cabbie died.

John Watson stood on an upper floor many windows away, a gun in his callused hand, and Sherlock looked into the black night air and did not see him.

* * *

But Sherlock knew when he stood with Lestrade in the street, an orange blanket clasped around his thin shoulders like a bizarre bright cloak, and saw his saviour in the milling crowd. He knew what John had done for him, and he felt something stir in his chest that had been shut and locked tight for many years.

John looked back at him, looked away.

And Sherlock, ignoring Lestrade's startled questions, lied to save his friend.

* * *

John remembered the way Sherlock's eyes had gleamed in the red-blue whirl of the police lights, the way he had looked down at him with an otherworldly expression on his sharp face. But he saw something reflected in those flashing eyes, something that made him hide an understanding smile. Not a sociopath, it seemed.

"You _have_ just killed a man," Sherlock said to John, attempting concern. His inhuman eyes flickered.

John, amused, made a joke, a horrible joke – but Sherlock had laughed. And then they were striding away from the police, away from the crime scene, and they were cracking awful jokes and laughing in the cold, their breath casting billows of fog into the night.

It was like fate, like the way the moon shone over silver water, like the way the sun always rose in the morning: it was like truth, the two of them together in that terrible, wonderful city.

* * *

Not even the icy, snide Mycroft nor his money could dissuade John from his newfound friendship: the two men became inseparable – and John lost more sleep than before. But he was happy, happy even though Sherlock was quite mad in his irregular hours and his many oddities. Among them was the bewildering, shocking habit of storing of body parts in the refrigerator, not to mention his frequent overturning of common manners – such as asking John to give him his phone, even when it was _in his very own coat pocket._ Oh yes, and the coat was another standard – that distinctive Belstaff coat that flared out when the detective dashed into alleyways and darkened buildings. Not to mention the blue scarf he slung around his neck for dramatic effect.

Sherlock was really not the most subtle of men.

But this was to be expected. After all, geniuses had their quirks (though Sherlock had more than most) and John was rather pleased to accompany the detective on his madcap journeys into the underworld of crime.

Which was when they met Moriarty, and then everything, everything, went to pieces.

* * *

No, John had not expected this. This – this _beast_, this _monster_, which fed off dying humans, which lived for evil and its twisting, despicable pathways and detours. Moriarty, the man of death. A harbinger of madness. He heralded doom; he shone with a peculiar sort of greenish light, a aura of corruption, jealousy, insanity. He knocked John out, tied him up, strapped a bomb to his chest, and sent him to meet Sherlock.

And Sherlock _believed_ it was him. That he was Moriarty, the mastermind of crime. That _he _was the massive, many-eyed spider in the poisoned heart of the city.

Yes, John had seen the pure shock in his friend's face, the shock that shook the detective to his slender bones, that almost slammed shut the cracked-open door of his heart. He had said Mortiarty's idiotic words in a sombre monotone, hoping Sherlock would see past the cruel façade and trust him.

But he hadn't, not until John had pulled back the flaps of his puffy jacket, and Sherlock had seen the death that lay underneath.

Ironically, at that moment Sherlock had relaxed. John was not Moriarty; his friend had not turned trickster. The moon still shone.

But there was the matter of the bomb.

And then Moriarty stepped into the spotlight, moved into his chosen place at the side of the pool, and fixed Sherlock with a fractured stare.

He was quite mad. Sherlock stared back, weighing options, finding none. Not without hurting John, now that the snipers had come. The smell of chlorine was like the smell of blood. Around him the echoing room buzzed with tension and dread. Moriarty stood behind a frozen John, a John still recovering from the horror of war, a John strapped to a live, waiting bomb, and laughed in Sherlock's face.

And the great detective knew his flaws, his gaping, horrific flaws. He knew his weaknesses, and they _mocked_ him, stopped his very thoughts.

* * *

The tale would have ended here, if it had not been for Irene and her willingness at this tense moment to take her life in her hands. The snarling of Moriarty's crazed rage hissed grotesquely into his phone; Sherlock stood besides John and waited for his new archenemy to make another move. His gun still pointed at the discarded bomb on the tile, poised for destruction.

But there was no need. Because then came only Moriarty's grand exit, a last parting shot of stupid, infuriating words.

And the curtain fell on the detective and the doctor, both still alive, and both knowing the enormity of their escape.

* * *

Later came greater horror, and Sherlock banished John, stoic, constant John, from his side, sending him away in response to two lies. Mrs. Hudson was in no danger (not yet), but John did not know this. John was too kind, too trusting for his own good, thought Sherlock, and it was well that he was, for otherwise Sherlock would not have been able to climb to the roof of the hospital and meet Moriarty there.

Would the man never give up and just _die_?

And this was what Moriarty told Sherlock to do.

They stood at the edge of death, Sherlock holding Moriarty suspended above the noisy street far below, the mad king's heels scrabbling for purchase on the roof. But he could not do it, could not push him over. He could not murder a man in cold blood.

And then as he stood at the edge, ready to jump, he'd _realized._ He laughed aloud in triumph; Moriarty had turned, and found the flaw in his plan.

But streets away, snipers waited for Mrs. Hudson, for Lestrade, for John Watson. They waited for their signal. And Moriarty, knowing Sherlock was right, took his own sword and slashed himself through the heart. The red blood was like a river.

With his death, he cast Sherlock's friends to the wolves.

Sherlock, shaken, terrified, stone-hearted, turned from his enemy's fallen body, and looked down at the street below.

* * *

He had told Moriarty he wasn't on the side of the angels. This was true. But when he fell from St. Bartholomew's rooftop, he paralleled Lucifer in his great descent from heaven. A star dropping to the earth.

But the metaphor was imperfect: though the public thought he was a fraud, though they believed his light had turned to darkness, they were wrong. John Watson was proof enough of that, and his last words to Sherlock were a denial of the lie which his friend sought to persuade him.

* * *

After the funeral, John stood before the detective's grave, his deadened eyes glinting with unshed tears, and said his piece. He did not hold the words back, no matter how foolish they seemed.

Above him, those who listened to mortals and their wishes heard.

Behind the hanging trees Sherlock lingered in the gloom, listening.

He turned on his heel and went into the night of his loneliness, striding away to vanquish his enemies, heading to avenge the dead and protect the living.

* * *

Some say that when the moon is full above the Thames, you can stand on the bank and catch the threads of an eerie sound. Sometimes, when it is very cold, and a soldier lies immobile and awake in his bed, you may hear the soft strains of a violin, pouring gently over the water.

It is the sound of a man who waits for his prey.

It is the sound of a man who waits to return.

It is the hope that one day, he may come home.


End file.
